To start off, what does SEO stand for? That’s easy – Search Engine Optimization.Now, how does SEO work? That’s not so easy, and that’s why we’re here to help. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving and promoting a website in order to increase the number of visitors the site receives from major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! SEO is quite complicated since it has so many aspects. It ranges from the words displayed on your page to the way in which other sites link to your website.To make things more simple, SEO is just a matter of making sure your website is structured in a way that these search engines will easily understand. Although search engines have become increasingly sophisticated, they still don’t have the capacity to understand a website the same way a human does. This is why SEO really comes in handy – it helps the search engines figure out what each page on the website is about, and how it will be useful to users.For optimal results, SEO should be implemented on-site (website structure), on-page (page content) and off-page (link building). Here we cover some on-page SEO basics.

Another Important Acronym

SERP: When a user searches a specific keyword, the search engine results page (SERP) is what appears. This is where website rankings come into play. Your business needs SEO tactics to increase the ranking of your website on the results pages. Each search engine has a unique algorithm for establishing the order in which links appear on the page. However, there are plenty of things that improve your site ranking across all search engines. These strategies include keywords, title tags, and quality content.

The Tools to Get You to the Top

Keywords are Key

It sounds redundant, but it's true. When a search is conducted, search engines like Google attempt to match the search term, or keyword, with a match from various websites containing these keywords. The search engine then evaluates content based on many different factors, such as the following:

1. Location of the person searching
2. Keywords typed by the user
3. Synonyms for the keywords searched
4. The type of content being searched (images, videos, news, products, information)
5. What does the user intend to do with this search? (Does the user need an answer, conversion, information, etc.)

After evaluating all of these factors, search engines use this information to provide the user with results from matching pages. Ranking for the right keywords determines the success of your website. It’s not about getting visitors to your website, but about getting the right kind of visitors, to potentially make conversions.

Everything should be optimized

So, you write a great article about your industry and you throw in keywords where they belong. Done? Not quite. For starters, make sure the permalink contains important keywords. Do you have any images within the article? If so, the file name and title of the image should be optimized as well. Tip: If you're using WordPress, you can try downloading a plugin, like WordPress SEO by Yoast, to analyze your page for proper optimization.

Title Tags

This is the single most important tag on your page that search engines use to classify websites. It is basically an SEO tag. Search engines evaluate keywords and phrases within the title tag. A title tag that has a strong SEO gets significantly higher placement on the search engine results pages (SERP).

All title tags on your website should be limited to 60 characters, since this is the amount Google usually displays. If your titles are kept under 55 characters, you can expect 95% of your titles to display properly. Users are more likely to click on a link displayed on the results page that has a full title rather than a partial title. When keywords are included in the title tag, search engines will bold them in the search results, which provide the user with greater visibility and usually means you’ll get a higher click-through rate also.

Content is King

You've probably heard this before, and chances are, you’re going to keep hearing it. When people are online searching for businesses, they are attracted by interesting content, making them more likely to stay on a page longer, explore other pages on your website, and perhaps even share your content on their personal social networks. So what does this mean for you? Two things: higher rankings and increased web traffic. You should never underestimate the power of good quality content. The purpose of content is to connect with your audience, and in turn, bring your business more customers and increased revenue!

Why You Need SEO

So you may be wondering, “Why do I even need to worry about SEO?” Well, if you own a business, your website must provide some type of content, services, products, or information. Now, take a guess as to what drives web traffic to generate visits to your website – search engines. These are the roadways that provide targeted traffic, meaning the people who are specifically searching for what your business offers.If your website is not optimized to be found by these search engines, then you can’t reach your target customers, which means you miss out on valuable opportunities like publicity, revenue, and exposure. No big deal, right? Wrong. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization’s success. The Internet is increasingly competitive, and the companies who perform SEO will have a major advantage in visitors converting to customers. Investing in SEO can have an exceptional long-term rate of return in comparison to other common types of promotion and/or marketing.Need help getting to the top? Contact our Online Marketing experts here or drop us a message below.